GIGATweaker: terrific “tweaker” for Windows 7 and Vista

Some of us are already running Windows 7 while for others Windows 7 is just around the corner (literally). So this is a prime time to talk about GIGATweaker, a featured filled, easy-to-use, “tweaker” for Windows 7 (and Vista):

[1]

Designed for Windows 7, and Windows Vista, GIGATweaker comes packed with tweaks, a startup manager, an uninstall manager, a section where it provides quick links to all the utilities you would have to dig through Control Panel to get to otherwise. Best of all, GIGATweaker makes it easy to create system restore points (in fact it insists you create a restore point every time you run it; you can always decline though) so you can roll back your system if you do something that you regret later on. Also, to help with user friendliness, GIGATwaker includes a “console” which logs the tweaks you make with GIGATweaker and a GIGATweaker assistant which displays short tips from the system tray.

Now all the “tweaks” of GIGATweaker are not exclusive to the program. In other words, many of these tweaks you can do from Windows natively, or from other programs. However, what makes GIGATweaker so great is it puts all these tweaks in one place making it easy for you to access at short notice.

That being said, with GIGATweaker you can do things like automate Windows login (if you have multiple users or a password assigned to your user account), display messages to users before they logon, tells Windows what to do if an error message appears, e[2]nable/disable UAC, enable/disable Autoplay, change the drive letter positioning, enable/disable various Windows components like Control Panel, Regedit, Command Prompt, Task Manager, Explorer Context menu, etc., restrict user access to third party programs, change the name Windows is installed to, enable Windows Installer Service in Safe Mode, disable use of Windows’ page file, change memory type allocation based on how you use your computer, enable/disable selective visual effects, turn off Windows Index service, disable Windows’ built in ZIP feature, disable “hibernate”, edit the context menu, extend Window’s evaluation from 30 day to 120 days, and much, much more.

Since it would take me ages to manually list all the tweaks/features of GIGATweaker in writing, I present you with screenshots of them instead:

Administration

System

[3][4][5][6]

Security

[7][8]

Files and Drives

[9][10][11]

Restrictions

[12][13][14][15]

System Information

[16][17]

Display

Explorer and Start Menu

[18][19][20]

Visual Effects

[21][22]

Customization

System

[23][24][25][26]

Optimization

[27][28][29]

Memory Management

[30][31][32]

Context Menu

[33][34][35]

Communication

Network

[36]

Internet Explorer

[37]

Maintenance

Startup Manager

[38]

Uninstall Manager

[39]

Windows Utilities

[40][41][42][43][44]

Wholy moly, that was a lot of screenshots, don’t you think? Well, that just goes to show you how many tweaks/features GIGATweaker has. There is, however, one small con to GIGATweaker. The developer is not a native English speaker (I assume he is not a native English speaker since he is Russian), so sometimes he skips out on a word or two in his sentences. In other words, sometimes you may find a sentence or two, which describes a program feature, that reads awkward; just read it twice or thrice to understand what the developer is trying to say – the English is actually very good and understandable.

You can download GIGATweaker from the following links:

Version reviewed: v3.0.1.432

Supported OS: Windows 7 and Vista – no mention of if both 32-bit or 64-bit are supported (I tested it on 32-bit)

Update: Ira reports this does not work on Vista 64-bit so it won’t work no Win7 64-bit either.